Kindergartners get help trying to figure out what bus to get on Friday after class at Amesti Elementary School. (Photos by Tarmo Hannula)

On Friday afternoon, hundreds of exuberant kindergartners were pouring out of Amesti Elementary School, with teachers and aides doing their best to keep them lined up and to shuffle them onto the correct buses.

They had their work cut out for them. Last year, Pajaro Valley Unified School District cut 48 full-time kindergarten and third-grade teaching positions for a savings of about $1.48 million. As a result, teachers in those grades have seen their class sizes nearly double.

“Our numbers have been really high,” Pajaro Valley Federation of Teachers president Francisco Rodriguez said. “We have some schools with kindergarten classes well into 40 and above.”

The crowding has put an extra burden on schools, while staff size has stayed the same or, in many cases, decreased.

To make matters worse, the enrollment is projected to increase in the coming years, Rodriguez said.

“It has really given teachers a hard time,” he said.

With more bodies packed into the classrooms, student behavior has degenerated, and keeping them on task has

become much more difficult, said Kim Schnittger, a third-grade teacher at H.A. Hyde Elementary.

“It’s moderately controlled chaos,” she said.

Schnittger has been with PVUSD for 25 years, about 15 of which she has spent at H.A. Hyde.

The crowded classrooms have also made it difficult for teachers to get to know their students, said Nancy Van Antwerp, a kindergarten teacher at Amesti. Now, it’s harder to determine what extra help they might need.

“We’re used to immediately building a bond and a relationship,” she said. “By now we usually know our children, and what they need.”

Some teachers are reporting that students who normally have few behavioral issues are finding themselves in timeouts and in the principal’s office.

Schnittger said she has 31 students, up from 18 last year. She said she’s tried to rearrange her room twice to help ease overcrowding.

“Teaching is a huge challenge,” she said. “Getting everybody quiet to give instructions is a Herculean task.”

Students are used to working on projects in small groups, which is now impossible because of the size of the classroom and number of students, she said.

Schnittger estimates she’ll be able to cover about half the amount of material she has in past years.

The number of teachers and staff members have decreased as class sizes have risen, but schools’ requirements to meet state and federal testing goals are unchanged, and in some cases are increasing, making the challenge more difficult. Poor test results can result in sanctions that can include further loss of funding.

“I’m so worried about this year’s test scores,” Amesti kindergarten teacher Josefina Castellon said.

Laura Zucker, a reading teacher at Amesti Elementary, said that the number of students who scored proficient or above on state tests has tripled since 2000, despite the loss of several staff members.

“We’re hopeful that we’ll do well, but if we want to keep it up, we can’t keep pulling the rug out from under them,” she said.

Bertha Carlos, a first-grade teacher at Amesti, praised the kindergarten teachers for successfully preparing their students for the next year. Now, getting them ready for first grade could be more difficult.

“It’s a domino effect,” she said.

Julie Vallens, a third-grade teacher at Amesti, said the primary complaint from her students is that the classroom is loud, making concentration difficult. This sentiment is echoed by many teachers whose class sizes have increased.

Still, Vallens has faith she can teach her students, despite the numbers.

“I see it as a very motivating challenge,” she said.

Rodriguez said that older students returning to school after summer break have learned classroom rules and what is expected of them.

Kindergartners, on the other hand, need to be taught those rules — a task made more difficult in a classroom with nearly 40 students.

“Kindergarten is always stressful in the first few months, because school is a brand-new experience,” H.A. Hyde principal Brett Knupfer said.

To help with the crowding issue in kindergarten classrooms, many schools have recruited parent volunteers and brought in support staff who normally teach subjects such as reading and speech and run after-school programs.

The unexpected increase in the number of students at Amesti and H.A. Hyde has generated funds that will allow PVUSD to hire an additional teacher, PVUSD trustee Sandra Nichols said. This will ease student numbers in kindergarten classes to around 30, which teachers say is still too high.

Nichols was at Amesti on Friday, helping with efforts to get the kids on their buses.

“There’s always good to be seen in the classrooms,” she said. “Students are making progress, even though there’s turmoil all around.”

Still, she said that the issue is having an affect on schools’ youngest students.

“In kindergarten, the impact is most severe, because they’re not used to taking instruction from someone they don’t know,” she said.

Van Antwerp said she only wants to teach her students.

“It’s what we love to do,” she said. “But now it feels like we can’t get into a rhythm because there’s too many kids.”



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